The number of international students enrolling in colleges in the United States has taken a sharp decline amid the Trump administration’s restrictions on higher education in the country.
Published on Monday by the Institute of International Education (IIE), a nonprofit international educators group based in New York, the study showed the enrollment of new international student dropped by 17% in the 2025-26 academic year, the most significant drop in over 10 years not counting the pandemic year.
This is after a report from the 2024-25 academic year saw a drop of 7.2%, data from in-between the Biden administration and the early month of Trump’s second term as president.
The fall 2025 snapshot survey which collected data from 825 U.S. higher education institutions saw 57% report a decrease in new international student enrollments for the 2025-26 year with it stating there was “concerns about the visa application process, such as visa delays and denials, have long been the leading factor noted by institutions for enrollment declines.”
“Additionally, institutions cite that student concerns about feeling unwelcome in the US (67%) or about the broader social and political environment (64%) may have affected new enrollment,” the report added.
The report comes amid a year where Trump has been engaged in a tense battle against the nation’s most recognizable colleges and universities as he looks to reshape America’s higher eduction system. The government has launched a series of assualts accusing a number of institutions of antisemitism and anti-conservative bias and undertaking multiple legal actions seeing billions of dollars of federal funding revoked. Some of whom have since agreed to the governments demands.
Fanta Aw, executive director and chief executive of Nafsa: Association of International Educators, released a statement reading: “A close read of enrollment figures from last year and this fall shows that the pipeline of global talent in the US is in a precarious position.”
“There are alarming declines that we ignore at our own peril. Other countries are creating effective incentives to capitalize on our mistakes. The U.S. must adopt more proactive policies to attract and retain the world’s best and brightest … otherwise international students will increasingly choose to go elsewhere to the detriment of our economy, excellence in research and innovation, and global competitiveness and engagement.”
Foreign students make up of 6% of the total U.S. enrollment of institutions in the United States and according to 2024 data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, added approximately $55 billion to the U.S. economy last year.
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